Our FPL expert looks at the best goalkeepers to sign for the start of the 2026/27 Fantasy Premier League season.
Since the new Fantasy Premier League season started with last week’s launch, our resident expert has been gradually working through the price lists and the stats to figure out which players we should be adding to our teams ahead of the big kick-off – and he’s been passing his conclusions on to you as he goes.
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So far this week, he’s taken a look at his favourite budget forwards, £5.5m midfielders and £4.5m defenders – and now he’s looking at how players should pick their goalkeeper for Gameweek 1.
Rather than put together a top five, as he has for previous positions, he’s going to take you through his process for picking out the best goalkeeper – and which players he’d pick depending on how you approach this particular puzzle.
Raya is still the best – but should you sign him for Gameweek 1?
David Raya's 162 points led the way among goalkeepers in the FPL last seasonplaceholder image
David Raya's 162 points led the way among goalkeepers in the FPL last season | Getty Images
I’ll start this article off by explaining an assumption that the rest of my logic is based around: That the gap between the £5.0m goalkeepers and the more modestly-priced £4.5m goalkeepers isn’t likely to be large enough to warrant spending the extra half a million.
The best £5.0m goalkeepers – players like Caoimhín Kelleher, Dean Henderson and perhaps Senne Lammens – are 130-140 point players if their teams maintain last season’s form. The best £4.5m goalkeepers are only just behind in the 120-130 point bracket, and have potential to push on from there and score more with a little bit of luck. On average, you just don’t expect to earn enough more from spending the extra to make it worthwhile. I’m saving it for other positions.
On that basis alone, I’ve already discounted the possibility of picking a £5.0m goalkeeper. They’re all out of the question until such time as one of them proves to be the extra investment. Perhaps one of them plays for a team that’s about to take a leap forward defensively, but we don’t know which team that might be yet.
As such, my theory is that the way forward is to either pick a £4.5m goalkeeper as a long-term set-and-forget or to gamble and go for a more expensive starter. I certainly wouldn’t be surprised, for instance, if the best possible team included David Raya.
Arsenal kept the most clean sheets in the league last season and I’d expect them to do that again given the gap between theirs and the next best defence. Raya is a very safe choice and I see no particular reason that his 162-point haul shouldn’t be repeatable.
I do have some doubts about having Raya in from Gameweek 1, however, even I suspect that he’d be a fantastic set-and-forget. Arsenal have a couple of potentially tricky fixtures and it’s not unreasonable to suspect that William Saliba’s absence will have a negative impact. Arsenal’s defence could have a slow start, even if they’ll surely be fine over the course of a 38-week season.
I’m not especially convinced by either Gianluigi Donnarumma or Jordan Pickford at £5.5m. Donnarumma’s issue is that while Manchester City’s defence is strong enough that he isn’t forced to make enough saves to pick up those extra points – that’s why he wound up scoring fewer points than Kelleher last season despite keeping 15 clean sheets. Pickford has consistently scored well, but would need Everton to keep 12-14 clean sheets to get up towards 150-160 points based on his stats over the past few years. I’m not quite sure I see it, although it’s borderline.
Raya seems to have the highest ceiling of any goalkeeper in the game, so I think for me the choice is between picking Raya and assuming that I’ll have him in for 38 weeks, or picking a £4.5m goalkeeper with good early fixtures to get the points flowing, keeping the option open of switching him out for Raya once I know where I can best find the savings in other parts of the team. Either seems perfectly logical.
The best £4.5m goalkeeper in the FPL this season
Bart Verbruggen's 130 points put him within six of Pickford, Donnarumma and Roefs - and he's cheaper than all of themplaceholder image
Bart Verbruggen's 130 points put him within six of Pickford, Donnarumma and Roefs - and he's cheaper than all of them | Getty Images
If you come down on the £4.5m side of the debate – and I suspect I will for Gameweek 1, although I certainly haven’t finished drafting teams and running the numbers – then you’ve got a few different options to pick between, although two goalkeepers stand out by a fair distance.
It’s almost impossible to choose between Bart Verbruggen and Đorđe Petrović. Verbruggen scored six points more last season, but the gap in terms of stats was minimal – similar numbers for clean sheets, saves and bonus points, although Verbruggen was a little unfortunate not to pick up more of the latter given that he scored quite highly overall in the bonus points system. He just tended to get pipped by players who scored even more highly on the day.
Of the two, I’m leaning slightly towards Verbruggen as the better of the two and probably the best £4.5m goalkeeper overall. Partly that’s because of the bonus points and the marginally higher potential they provide, but also partly because continuity in the dugout makes it a little easier to trust that Brighton will continue to maintain last season’s standards. It’s not that hard to imagine Bournemouth regressing slightly with Andoni Iraola out of the picture.
Brighton’s early fixtures are a distinctly mixed bag, but I’d prefer to have a solid set and forget than to think too much about using transfers on goalkeepers. As the minimal gap between the points scored by most goalkeepers last season suggests, there isn’t often much value in spending too many resources in this position. I often won’t change my goalkeeper at all until it’s time to use my wildcard.
There is another interesting option at £4.5m worth flagging: Tottenham Hotspur’s Antonín Kinský, who is in a very high percentage of first drafts as he’s expected to be Spurs’ regular starter moving forward.
There is certainly a world in which Spurs are much better this season, but I’d want to see proof of concept first. De Zerbi’s best sides haven’t generally been that sound defensively, and even the improved side he oversaw for the last seven games of the 2025/26 kept just two clean sheets. I’m not convinced yet, but I understand the instinct to gamble on Spurs being a top four contender again and bringing Kinský’s points tally along for the ride.
Right now, Verbruggen will be my goalkeeper for week one unless I stumble upon a draft which frees up the extra money for Raya without feeling as though I’m sacrificing too much elsewhere. I don’t expect that to happen.